The four-page fragment from the second book of Aelianus’ Timaeus commentary quoted
by Porphurios (33.16–37.5 Düring) is concerned with the physical determinants of pitch-
difference in musical notes. Aelianus subscribes to the traditional Pythagorean thesis
(established by A and codified in the E S C) that move-
ment is the cause of all sound, and that sound is “air that has been struck” (ae ̄r peple ̄gmenos,
33.21, a notion familiar from Timaeus 67b and the A C O S).
Differences in the speeds of the movements of the air cause differences in pitch: faster
movement causes higher pitch, and slower movement causes lower pitch. Aelianus illustrates
the theory with demonstrations on both wind and stringed instruments – demonstrations
which, while they employ two different hypotheses about the causation of pitch, are unified
in an attempt to explain how movement within an instrument is transferred to a movement
of the surrounding “air that has been struck;” it is the relative speeds of the latter, in
Aelianus’ argument, which constitute the pitch differences we apprehend with our ears.
Aelianus discusses concord and discord, and defines concord as a blend (krasis) of two
notes of different pitch, combined according to a principle of proportionality (summetria).
He is explicit in his view (a logical consequence of his acoustic theory) that the two
notes in a musical interval travel at different rates, and thus cover different distances in
the same amount of time. (In the case of the 2:1 octave interval, Aelianus’ theory
demands that the higher note travel twice the distance of the lower note in the same
amount of time). If empirical observation played a part in his investigations (as sug-
gested by his instrumental demonstrations), it must therefore have been limited. Aelianus
appears, from Porphurios’ quotation, not to have been worried by the implications of
this acoustic theory, about which A had already expressed concern (De Sensu
448a).
Düring (1932); Barker (1989); Mathiesen (1999); BNP 1 (2002) 201 (#3), M. Baltes.
David Creese
Claudius Aelianus of Praeneste (ca 195 – ca 235 CE)
Born ca 170, Roman freedman and well-connected orator and priest, “honey-tongue”
(meliglo ̄ssos: Souda AI-178), a canonical sophist who wrote in Greek (Philostratos VS). His lost
treatises On Providence and On Divine Manifestations (perhaps the same work), based on a couple
of fragments, may show Stoic ideas, which appear superficial or irrelevant in his two extant
writings, which extol through exquisite anecdotes human morality and animal virtue.
Besides a probably posthumous pamphlet Indictment of the Effeminate against Elagabalus, and
20 Rustic Letters (maybe apocryphal), he wrote a collection of edifying tales known as Miscel-
lany (Poikile ̄ historia, in 14 books) and a monumental compilation On the Characteristics of
Animals (Peri idiote ̄tos zo ̄io ̄n, in 17 books), which is, after A, the most important
extant zoological opus in Greek. His subtly affected style delighted Byzantine scholars (see
the numerous mentions in the Souda), and his work, surviving in many MSS, was abundantly
imitated in the east and used in medieval bestiaries. The Constantinian animal anthology
known as Epitome of Aristophane ̄s of Byzantium (10th c.) was primarily composed of an abstract
of Aristotle and a wide choice of whole chapters from Aelianus.
Aelianus’ work is a personal selection, made from numerous Greek authors (A
M, K, D, I, P A, etc.), addressing
all aspects of animals (mythology, ethology, biology, zootechnics,.. .), untidily dispatched in
808 chapters of uneven length. He records only three original observations (2.56, 5.47,
CLAUDIUS AELIANUS OF PRAENESTE